She did ask Helen point-blank, and that young lady, though as proud as Lucifer, condescended to own the truth, but accompanied her confession with a solemn declaration that everything was at an end between herself and Frank Vanguard, so that the great desire of her heart now was never to set eyes on him again. Mrs. Lascelles interpreting these sentiments in her own way, sat down forthwith, and penned the following little note, for further mystification of this bewildered young officer.
"Dear Captain Vanguard,—I have discovered something you ought to know. Such an embrouillement was never heard of but in an improbable farce, or still more improbable novel. Come to luncheon to-morrow, and we will lay our heads together in hopes of unravelling the skein. Miss Hallaton is staying with me. You will like to meet her I am sure, only you and I must have our conference first.
"Yours very sincerely,
"Rose Lascelles."
Frank's heart leaped under his cuirass while he read this mysterious epistle, on his return from a sweltering inspection in the Long Walk. He had been trying to persuade himself he did not care for Helen, and fancied he succeeded. It was humiliating to feel that the bare mention of her name could thus affect him, yet was there a keen, strange pleasure in the sensation nevertheless.
On the barrack-room table of this fortunate dragoon there lay however another little missive, bearing to that of Mrs. Lascelles the sort of likeness a pen-wiper has to a butterfly. Its envelope was squarer and larger, its monogram gaudier and more intricate, its superscription fainter, paler, more aslant, more illegible. It exhaled a strong odour of musk, and was written on paper that glistened like satin.
"Dear Frank," it ran, "I shall be in the park to-morrow, at twelve. Look for the pony-carriage. I want you—so no nonsense. Don't fail—there's a good fellow.—Yours truly,—Kate Cremorne. P.S. If I'm not under the clock, wait there till I come."
"What can she be up to now?" thought Frank, carefully twisting this communication into a spill with which to light his cigar. "Got into a mess of some sort, no doubt, and expects me to pull her through, like the rest of them. How odd it is, I'm always blundering into entanglements with women I don't care two straws about, and the one I really could love, the one who would make me a good man, I do believe, and certainly a happy one, seems to be drifting every day farther and farther out of my reach. I shall see her to-morrow, and what then? I suppose our greeting will be confined to a distant bow, and some conventional sentence more painful than a cut direct. Still, I shall see her. That will be something. How strange it seems to be so easily satisfied now, when I think of all I hoped and expected so short a time ago. Well, beggars mustn't be choosers. I suppose I may as well meet Kate Cremorne first, and do her a turn if I can. She's a good girl, Kate, after all. Not half a bad-looking one neither, and as honest as the day."
So twelve o'clock found Frank very nicely dressed, and with a wonderfully prosperous air, considering his many troubles, picking his way daintily across the deserted Ride, to where a solitary pony-carriage, with a solitary pony drawing, and a solitary lady driving it, stood like a pretty toy, drawn up by the footway under the clock.
Miss Cremorne received him with coldness, even displeasure. She entertained a high opinion of her own acuteness, and thought she had hit upon a discovery by no means to his credit. In her many visits to Miss Ross—visits never made empty-handed, and to which, in all probability, the latter owed her restoration to health—she gathered from Jin that a friendship had lately existed between herself and the Captain Vanguard of whom they both loved to talk. Now, Belgravia and Brompton look at most matters in life, and particularly those connected with the affections, from different points of view. Kate, though a hybrid belonging to both districts, partook largely of the sentiments and feelings affected by the latter. She imagined a touching little romance, of which Jin's dark, curly-headed boy was the sequel, and being herself sans peur, determined to show Frank she did not hold him sans reproche.
"Jump in," said she, with extreme abruptness, as he approached the carriage. "I've got a crow to pick with you, and I mean to have it out. You're a nice young man, now! Don't you think you are?"
"Certainly," answered Frank, with imperturbable bonhomie. "I used to hope you thought so too!"